The Charge

Opening Statement

She's dead, wrapped in plastic. Her name is Teresa Banks. FBI boss Gordon
Cole (David Lynch), trusting intuition and cryptic clues (the FBI seems more
like a Rosicrucian order than a policing agency), sends two low-key agents, Chet
Desmond (Chris Isaak) and Sam Stanley (Kiefer Sutherland) to Deer Meadow to
investigate. They get surly service at Hap's Diner, scuffle with the sneering
Sheriff Cable and his deputies, and search the trailer park where Teresa lived.
In the course of the investigation, Agent Desmond vanishes.

One year later, in the sleepy town of Twin Peaks, Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee)
whispers to her hapless boyfriend James Hurley (James Marshall), "I'm
gone." And soon she will be.

The Evidence

What does it mean to burn? Sound burns: each time you speak, waves move
outward. Their friction heats the objects around you. The hiss of static is like
the hiss of fire, consuming noise. In the end, all that remains are ashes,
cinders.

The repercussions of a death cause waves to spread outward as well. We all
know by now what changes were wrought by the death of Laura Palmer. Twin
Peaks: Fire Walk With Me brings Laura's journey full circle, wrapping up the
final moments of the television series (a brief appearance by Heather Graham as
Annie, in Laura's dream, reveals what we all know from the series cliffhanger,
that "the good Dale" is trapped in the Lodge, where time does not
matter, and awaits Laura's arrival) and offering new secrets (who is Judy?) that
may lead us on new paths.

In spite of the Teresa Banks prologue, the real core of Fire Walk With
Me is Laura Palmer. We follow the last week of her life, knowing what will
happen to her, and knowing that beneath the cool exterior of the homecoming
queen is a drug-addicted, promiscuous manipulator so deep in trouble that her
actual death might have almost been an afterthought. And yet, David Lynch
chooses to dwell here on a third side to Laura Palmer, one little explored
(though hinted at during the second season) during the television series: Laura
Palmer as abuse victim. In this light, her kindly daytime façade and
self-destructive nighttime persona begin to make tragic sense. Laura throws
herself into debauchery as an escape, as a way of creating some perverse
justification for the trauma she suffers at the hands of her own father. Leland
(Ray Wise) Palmer's torment by an "inner demon" suddenly makes sense
as well: BOB is the dark heart of man made flesh. Does Leland embrace BOB
willingly, or is he merely a pawn of a greater evil?

And Donna, Laura's best friend? Here Lynch takes advantage of Lara Flynn
Boyle's absence to cast Moira Kelly -- a doppelganger Donna in a film rife with
doubles. This Donna craves the identity of her lovely and troubled friend,
sneaking after Laura at night, naïvely trying to mimic her depravity -- and
Laura will have none of it. Laura knows the path she is on will ultimately kill
her, one way or another. As she tells Harold (Lenny von Dohlen), who keeps her
diary safe from her tormentor BOB, "He says he wants to be me, or he'll
kill me." But after all, doesn't Laura secretly want to be somebody
else, in order to escape the terrors of being Leland Palmer's daughter?

Sheryl Lee, who was given little chance to stretch during the series (even
as Laura's doppelganger cousin Madeline), shows a talent here for barely
contained hysteria. Ray Wise, suppressing fury, and Moira Kelly, offering a mix
of longing and concern, carry themselves well. The rest of the cast, while not
given much to do, seem comfortable in their characters -- which is
understandable considering they are stepping directly over from the television
screen. Well, at least in the Twin Peaks portion of the film. During the Deer
Meadow investigation, we must endure the bland Desmond and Stanley. Not to
disparage Isaak and Sutherland's performances (they are always good, and Lynch
has always had a deft hand with actors), but the characters seem deliberately
flat and the situation has a "let's get this over with and get to Laura
Palmer" feel to it.

The first act of the film feels cramped, more of a parody of the original
Laura Palmer investigation than an individual story. Of course, it fits the
"doppelganger" theme perfectly, with Desmond and Stanley as mirror
images of Cooper and Albert Rosenfield (Desmond as cool to Cooper's enthusiasm;
Stanley as bland to Albert's fury) -- and everything from the bad coffee to the
sinister sheriff as reversals of Twin Peaks. But it seems more of a one-off joke
on the television series that does not provide us with much new information or
thematic development. Surprisingly, we can glean much more useful information
from the bizarre manifestation of Philip Jeffries (David Bowie) at FBI
headquarters: themes of power (Jeffries shouts about electricity, later Laura
looks at power lines, and of course, fire figures in here), surveillance
(cameras, the use of static to suggest the virtuality of their collective
dreamworld), disappearance. But the heart of Fire Walk With Me is the
final week of Laura Palmer's life.

If anything, the film actually suffers from having to conform to the
restrictions of a "Twin Peaks movie." Left to itself, the story of
Laura Palmer's psychological journey holds up, but in between, we are obligated
to make sense of Bobby's bumbling attempts to be a drug dealer and James'
perennial pouting. Perhaps this material would have worked better if Lynch had
severed it from the Peaks franchise entirely. Most of it would still have worked
(Cooper as an enigmatic policeman fated to play Laura's spirit guide, the demons
of the Lodge still manipulating human behavior) anyway. Like the television show
at its best, we must treat the events in Fire Walk With Me as if they are
happening in a dream, where characters and events mean several things at once,
and the fantastic overlaps with the realistic without question.

Legend holds that Lynch shot a host of scenes featuring Twin Peaks
regulars, as a gift to the fans, that ended up on the cutting room floor.
Although, as I just noted, the film overall probably would have been better off
not being a Twin Peaks project, it is unfortunately that distribution
rights for this additional material could not be worked out for the DVD. The
only extras are a theatrical trailer (which plays up the child abuse angle
prominently) and a 30-minute collection of interviews with the cast, chopped
together to make it seem as if the cast is chatting with one another about what
they have been up to lately and how Twin Peaks affected their careers.
There are some funny stories too, of course, and a bit about the missing scenes.
The absent Lynch comes across as an enigma (as he would likely want): with some
actors he allows improvisation, others must conform to the letter of the script;
with some he is forthcoming, with others he is cryptic. Perspective here is as
subjective as it is in the series and film. But all agree that Lynch can handle
actors skillfully. As Michael Anderson puts it, "When you start pulling
your subject matter from your own unconscious, it hits coincidental bells in
other people's unconsciousness that you don't know you're gonna hit."

Although the film boasts an anamorphic transfer that looks quite acceptable
much of the time, the latter half of the film suffers from color bleed and
scanning lines (especially during the Red Room scenes). And there was one major
case of artifacting toward the end. Perhaps I received a defective copy as a
screener (I have heard no one else complain about these problems), but if this
is not the case, these technical errors are inexcusable. Of minor concern is
Lynch's refusal to allow a chapter index on the disc, but it certainly does not
affect viewing the film.

Closing Statement

David Lynch fans are probably going to find more to be pleased with in
Fire Walk With Me than those looking for a comfortable followup to
Twin Peaks, but even if this is one of Lynch's weaker efforts due to the
narrative constraints he is obligated to follow. Perhaps all that extra content,
trapped in the Black Lodge of litigation, will see the light of day in the
future. And perhaps New Line has fixed the egregious problems with the transfer
by the time you read this. Would you like a soothing bowl of garmonbozia in the
meantime?

The Verdict

Laura is forgiven. But those who feed on pain and suffering are still at
large. And some of them apparently work at New Line. This court stands in
recess, in search of a good cup of coffee.